The following article was originally published by from on May 28, 2024.
Both US-born and foreign students have constitutionally recognized rights to free speech.
During a donor event earlier this month, former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president this year, said that he would deport students who protest in solidarity with Palestine if he becomes president again.
Trump made the authoritarian remarks at a May 14 private campaign event with high-paying GOP donors. The Washington Post was the first to report on the former president’s comments.
Trump specifically targeted foreign students in the U.S. who are here on education visas, but suggested that any student at a college or university who participates in pro-Palestine protests could be subject to deportation under his watch.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country,” Trump told his donors, adding that, “a lot of foreign students…[are] going to behave” upon hearing of that threat.
Both U.S.-born and foreign students have constitutionally recognized rights to free speech, assembly and due process in the U.S. Trump’s proposition would ignore past precedents on such matters.
